Realmslayer: Legend of the Doomseeker by David Guymer

Author:David Guymer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FMB
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2023-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

Maleneth cursed for the hundredth time as, for the hundredth time, a whipping tree branch managed to scrape her freezing white skin. She threaded her way between the trees as delicately as she could, telling herself that the pair of blundering rhinoxen ahead of her would be suffer­ing worse, but to little avail on either count. The cold wood appeared to stir a little more, the deeper they ran. The trees rustled and sang, a brittle melody that touched something buried in her aelven soul. It made her want to run, far from this place, to bury her head and hide until the trees sang no more.

‘I think it is even colder here than it was on the trail.’

‘This winter’s the work of the Everqueen,’ said Witromm. Maleneth cast Gotrek an I told you so look that bounced off the Slayer’s back unheeded. ‘I fear that as we near the Cueth’nhair hearthglades we’re inadvertently approaching the heart of it.’

‘Why would she lock one of her own kingdoms in winter?’ asked Maleneth.

‘Who knows why the gods do anything? Are you going to ask them, lass? I’ll not be.’

‘Which is probably why they imagine they can get away with it,’ Gotrek grumbled in typically gnomic fashion.

The sounds of hunting horns rang through the forested hills. There were several of them now, and from all around, ahead of them as well as from behind. Maleneth was more accustomed to being the one set loose onto some terrified quarry’s trail, but she knew what it was to be hunted. The dryads were closing off their routes of escape, herding them ever further uphill towards their hearthglades. It would not be long now until they attacked again, this time in over-whelming force.

‘Can we evade them?’ she said, panting. ‘The Huntress, Druanthael, offered Gotrek the chance to leave. If we were to follow the slope downhill, then perhaps we could let her believe we are fleeing back to Hammerhal Ghyra.’

‘I’d sooner set fire to my own beard than have some tree harpy entertain any such thought.’

‘Who cares what she thinks, Gotrek, so long as we are alive?’

‘It’s too late for that now anyway,’ said Witromm. ‘You heard her. The hunt’s been called and it doesn’t end until we’re dead.’

‘Still glad you came along?’ Maleneth asked.

‘Better to die in the woods in half-decent company than in some Hammerhalian gutter.’

‘I liked the gutter,’ Gotrek muttered.

‘Hmm,’ said Maleneth suspiciously.

‘Any chance you could up the pace a little, lass?’

Maleneth let out a breathless laugh. ‘I do not think I will be able to keep to this pace for much longer.’

‘No stamina, you elves,’ said Gotrek. ‘I bet you couldn’t even run up a small hill without stopping for breath.’

A horn sounded close by. Something in the snow-laden branches moved, a shadow too stealthy even for Maleneth’s sharp eyes to follow. The trees shivered, less with cold than with anticipation. Maleneth moaned in frustration and ran faster. She refused to die on a hillside in Ghyran because Gotrek Gurnisson was as stubborn as an Ymetrican longhorn with its head down.

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